Rickie Weeks out for the season (Wrist)

[JTWood]

In 2009, however, the 26 year-old is finally thumping opposing pitchers like many scouts projected. With 9 dingers and a .257 ISO in 153 PA, Weeks has a .377 wOBA that ranks 8th among second basemen. The 5-11, 210 pounder has been a little more aggressive in ‘09, chasing 23.4% of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone (19.6% career average). His walk rate (6.7%) and P/PA (3.8 in ‘09, compared to 4.2 in 2007 and 4.1 in 2008) also reflect a less restrained approach. Weeks is also lofting the ball more often (43.8 FB%, 37.1 career average) and his line drive rate has rebounded (19%). His K rate, always rather lofty, is largely unchanged (25% in ‘09, 26.2% career).

Wow... That sounds eerily familiar, except he just totally blows it off by labelling it "aggressive" instead of calling a spade a spade.

"He's looking less disciplined, getting under the ball more, and still missing the ball as often as he always has.

He might be breaking out!"

You guys can argue how he looked and how you felt about him, but if this were any other player than Rickie Weeks, we'd all be looking at this peripheral set, staring at his history, and screaming that a regression epic in nature was looming on the horizon. Obviously, I'm arguing something that can never be proven. He won't play for the rest of the year. There will be no stats from Weeks that we can compare to his replacement, but I certainly don't feel uneasy saying that Weeks was not going to perform anywhere near this level the rest of the year. I'd say the say thing about any other player with a similar history and these numbers.

[baseballrich]

Brian Roberts would be a great fit. I understand he has a long term contract but he is a PROVEN 2B - Weeks is not. I had Weeks on several of my teams hoping for a breakout year but he either gets hurt or sucks year after year.

[Another Blown Save]

They should just re-sign Ray Durham.

[Ender]

but if this were any other player than Rickie Weeks, we'd all be looking at this peripheral set, staring at his history, and screaming that a regression epic in nature was looming on the horizon

I'm not so sure we would. As I already showed his BB rate already reverted to normal, it appears to just be an early season blip.

He is the classic case of a hard to project player because of all of his injury issues. He has hit .279 before and has a career .247 AVG, he also changed his batting stance and is hitting more line drives. While he may not have hit .272 all year I don't see a strong reason to expect major regression out of it, something in the .250s is very reasonable. His ISO is .245 which obviously is high but he has had a season with a .198 before and he was always touted as a 30+ HR power guy. I sure wasn't suggesting he would hit 40 HRs this year but something in the 20s seemed reasonable.

Since we were discussing real baseball he has had a season valued at 3.2 WARP in the past and fielding and playing time is what has kept him away from 3 WARP other seasons. Over a full season with minor improvements he could easily have approached 4 WARP on the season. 4 WARP is what players like Victorino, Hamilton, Braun etc put up last season. Even at 3.5 WARP we are talking guys like Morneau, Adrian Gonzalez, Ryan Howard.

Weeks was certainly a valuable player and the team is in no way being helped by him getting injured.